"That is what intrigues me; songwriting and song structure and expression"
About this Quote
Curiosity is the engine here, not ego. Geddy Lee isn’t talking about fame, charts, or even performance; he’s pointing at the craft table where the real decisions get made. “That is what intrigues me” frames songwriting as an ongoing puzzle, the kind that keeps you up because the solution keeps changing. It’s a modest phrase that carries a lifelong obsession: the work is never “mastered,” only re-entered.
The triad - “songwriting and song structure and expression” - reads like a map of how music actually functions. Songwriting is the raw material: melody, lyric, harmonic DNA. Structure is the architecture that turns ideas into momentum, withholding and release, tension and payoff. Expression is the human fingerprint: phrasing, dynamics, tone, the emotional temperature that makes two identical chords feel like different truths. Lee’s sequencing matters; he doesn’t romanticize “expression” as pure feeling divorced from technique. He places it after structure, suggesting that emotion is something you build, not something you merely spill.
In context, it fits an artist who came up in a band famous for complexity that still had to land as songs, not exercises. The subtext is a quiet defense of intention: progressive ambitions only matter if they serve coherence and feeling. Lee’s intrigue is less “how do we play more notes” than “how do we make the listener follow, then feel,” which is a far harder flex.
The triad - “songwriting and song structure and expression” - reads like a map of how music actually functions. Songwriting is the raw material: melody, lyric, harmonic DNA. Structure is the architecture that turns ideas into momentum, withholding and release, tension and payoff. Expression is the human fingerprint: phrasing, dynamics, tone, the emotional temperature that makes two identical chords feel like different truths. Lee’s sequencing matters; he doesn’t romanticize “expression” as pure feeling divorced from technique. He places it after structure, suggesting that emotion is something you build, not something you merely spill.
In context, it fits an artist who came up in a band famous for complexity that still had to land as songs, not exercises. The subtext is a quiet defense of intention: progressive ambitions only matter if they serve coherence and feeling. Lee’s intrigue is less “how do we play more notes” than “how do we make the listener follow, then feel,” which is a far harder flex.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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